This site hopefully can provide some vehicle by which I can comment, complain, and once in a while praise the state of religion in this country and around the world from a liberal protestant perspective.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Some News

"When people talk about further destabilisation of the region and you read some American political advisers speaking of action against Syria and Iran..I regard that as criminal, ignorant and potentially murderous folly.

We do hear talk from some quarters of action against Syria and Iran. I can't understand what planet such persons are living on, when you see the conditions that are already there." Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks out against plans to bomb Iran.

And in a disturbing news item, young people are less likely to identify with Christianity themselves but 91% agree that "anti-homosexual" defines Christian faith. The success of the religious right will end up being the generational death of Christianity.

I've noticed that the American Prospect has a new column, the FundamentaList, covering the religious right but they don't cover the religious left. We have the mainstream media and the democratic presidential candidates interested in the religious left.

Yet too often the liberal press and groups fail to take notice, always pitting religion against liberal values, not finding places of connection with people of faith. That's gotta change if we hope to build a movement, not just electoral success over the failures of Bush.

2 Comments:

My Time hasn't come yet, so I've not had a chance to look closely at this article. It is interesting how young people by and large aren't homophobic -- which bodes poorly for the Religious Right and for conservative Christian communities. Now the question is -- will they find themselves attracted to more progressive religious/Christian communities? Or will they write the church off? My hope is that they will listen for voices that aren't anti-homosexual and check it out. The question is -- are we ready both to share our voice and to receive them when they come?

Liberal voices aren't deemed sexy by the media. However, the Church doesn't help by following the script and focusing on issues such as abortion in a narrow way instead of talking about the violence and suffering experienced by the living. You can check my blog on this, R Williams on abortion and liberal religion. Let me know your thoughts!